Facebook will begin adding photos of its users to third-party adverts appearing in users' news feeds come early next year, so if you're the sort who's a bit free with your thumbs-up button, there's no way out of being featured alongside a tin of baked beans or a pair of knickers on the social network.
The Mark Zuckerberg-run …

Easier said than done..

You can't actually delete your FacePuke account. If you leave it completely untouched for a couple of months, it will eventually be removed. But if you visit the site at all during that time, your account will be resurrected again.

No you can't!

"...They retain it deactivated for two weeks in case you change your mind, then it gets really deleted. Why don't you read the FAQs about it?..."

Isn't that what I said?

Most websites will allow you to delete your account instantly, or maybe after clicking on a link in an "Are you sure?" email. FacePuke will only allow you to 'deactivate' your account and then have it deleted automatically after two weeks.

However, if within that two weeks, you revisit FacePuke, or interact with your account in any way [even indirectly –for example posting to Twitter, Flickr, or Tumblr etc. when these are linked to your FacePuke account], then your FacePuke account is automatically reactivated, whether you wanted it to be, or not.

Better yet...

The say all these brave things but they never follow through

How has FB got into such an abusive position? Because those that whinge tend to fall into line anyway.

They say stuff like "i will replace all images in my profile to seriously disgusting crap, not fit to be shown anywhere." but don't worry they won't, tomorrow they'll accept the new way of doing things and assume the bitch position.

Hmm...

I've "Liked" very few things, but I notice I have been Auto-Liked for stuff listed in my profile, like when I stated Carl Sagan is one of my inspirations, Auto-Like. Hmm... If you ask me, "Like" is completely irrelevant without a similar "Dislike" option.

Having said that, my profile picture is the lovely Haruhi Suzumiya, so I guess I'm not *that* bothered.

@AC 12:57

As you don't waste time stating the obvious ( ie, banging on about Adblock to fight the FB menace, etc ) you had time to reply to the poster above. We can only assume you had several seconds to spare between your umpteen sexual conquests to come back to grace us, spend time reading your own posts and reply to them!

@Adverts in the News Feed. :(

I absolutely hate adverts but I can see why Facebook are doing this move even though I don't like it.

In Consumer Psychology a recommendation from a friend is considered far more likely to influence the buying habits of *most* people. So there is some very deep frankly sick manipulative psychology going on with putting friends faces on product info.

A recommendation from a friend doesn't win over everyone every time, its far more Stochastic than that, but it does bias the rate of favorable reactions to buying these products. Its a continuation of the well known brands idea, where people buy the "well known brands" in preference to unknown brands, at least more on average, due to such beliefs as “if its ok for them its probably ok for me” etc.. (Its a very big subject with many reasons, but in the end, a recommendation from a friend does work to increase sales). (Some people delight in saying, oh no it doesn't influence me, but stochastically, yes it does, we just don't often realize it).

It also doesn't mean the well known brands are really any better and they are often worse in one respect, as they spend more money on advertising to make themselves appear well known, which the consumer has to (in the end) pay for this extra advertising. But it does help bring in the sales above and beyond simply getting more consumers to see that product.

So what Facebook look like they are doing is trying to take that to the next level and with 800 million people, that's some serious potential to attract a lot of advertisers.

Personally I hate all adverts as they are all ultimately in my face obtrusive train of thought distractions, which I can totally do without, until I choose when I want to find a product I need, at that time. So the more someone markets their shit to me, the more I grow to hate it, but I do try to learn to be conscious of their marketing mind games and Facebook look like they are trying to take it to the next level. Oh joy. :(

Hmmm, adunno

I can taste the difference between a Kit Kat and an Asda-branded take-a-break, or whatever they're called now, and I prefer the former because it tastes creamier. Yes, there are times when the price doesn't reflect the quality, but I generally believe higher the price, higher the quality. I think well known brands tend to pay more for R&D, thus better products. Although in the case of foods they may not be as healthy--like more salt and sugar in well known cereals than supermarket versions.

I do agree, on the other hand, that some of the money will be spent on marketing, sometimes to 'fool' people into thinking they're more sustainable or greener than their competitions.

"I think well known brands tend to pay more for R&D"

Because that's how they can try to make their products better than their competitors, or penetrate new markets with a different type of product. At the moment, I'm thinking of Dyson and their innovations.

Re: simple opt out?

I don't have a FB account but as I understand things they can follow me everywhere tracking my every movement even when I'm not on-line. What I'd like to know is: How can I opt out without a Facebook account?

Note: You might think this is tongue in cheek but just wait a few years...

Facef**ked by Facecook

One way to completely misuse facebook users. I'll be quite surprised if this doesn't get people to stop using it in droves. Then again, your average pleb will no doubt think it great to see there face endorising Facebook advertisers tat. Their face next to the sh*t they've clicked 'Like' on. How they can call it 'sponsored' when the user has no opt out strikes me as highly dubuious. It'll be great for employers when checking on candidates. "You've sponsored our competition on FB, we won't be offering you the job."

BristolBachelor: "If facebook was around in the 2nd world war, Hitler would've been amazing, with so many people liking him, despite the many, many more who didn't!"

If Facebook had been around during the 1930s and had been used as widely as it is today, it would have made the Nazis' job of identifying and dealing with undesirables so much easier.

Good luck in hiding any homosexual tendencies when it's bleeding obvious from your updates and relationships what you were doing and which known homosexuals you were doing it with.

Good luck in covering up your "dangeously subversive" political opinions. Good luck in obscuring your Jewish background or ancestors when even some elementary common-sense-based data mining would have made such relationships clear, even if you hadn't explicitly stated them.

Of course, those who had been foolish enough to do this before the rise of the Nazi threat- but who saw it coming- could simply request the complete removal of all their data from the system, and rest assured that it was completely gone, *never* to fall into the hands of those that didn't like them.

Then again, as Facebook are American, not German, they wouldn't get their hands on that data anyway. After all, major corporations like Facebook or Yahoo are well-known for standing up for their principles and would *never* hand over such information to a repressive or partisan foreign government.

Well...

... those who are in the habit of 'liking' consumerist crap like cock-a-cola, nike, apple, and such IMHO deserve everything they get.

On the other hand, if my profile pic were to appear next to a 'sponsored story' about the local recording studio or my favourite rock'n'roll hangout where I'm a regular to the point some people think I'm staff, I wouldn't be in the least disturbed :-)

Commercial use of a person in a photo/video requires the featured person to have signed a 'model release'. Some tickbox EULA probably doesn't cut it.

It's different with copyright, which is a seperate issue to a model release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_release

"Note that the issue of model release forms and liability waivers is a legal area related to privacy and is separate from copyright. Also, the need for model releases pertains to public use of the photos: i.e., publishing them, commercially or not. The act of taking a photo of someone in a public setting without a model release, or of viewing or non-commercially showing such a photo in private, generally does not create legal exposure, at least in the United States."

I wish there were more DL Smiths in this world

It must be great to be you. Or to be someone who knows you. You're so great there should be a compulsary DL Smith 101 class in every high school in the country. Then everyone would be living kick-ass lives.

As a pedestrian in Liberty City or Stilwater might say . . .

Finally, a stupid Failbook change I can live with

Firefox + AdblockPlus = What Adverts? ;)

Highlighted stories, on the other hand - *I* want to choose what I deem to be important, thank you. And DON'T think I haven't noticed that no matter how many times I un-Highlight any 'FriendX read these news articles' posts, you still keep highlighting them.

Then again, I only have the wretched thing to get regular updates on family, or I'd get rid of it in a heartbeat...

missing the point I think

Re: missing the point I think

Being as I never respond to anything other than non-public family invites anyway (which come along once in a blue moon), and never public invites, highly unlikely I'll be featured anywhere. No comfort to other users, I know, but I did only say that *I* could live with it ;)

And if Failbook starts broadcasting private events to the world and his dog, then that's going to meet with some pretty vicious user backlash I should think...

@Anonymous 22:08

Yes, mentioning AdBlock is almost as much of a cliche as personal attacks on people you've never met based on a single paragraph while hiding behind a shield of anonymity. Arguments tend to have a lot more weight if you back them up with something more effective than name-calling and caps lock.

Firefox + Adblock Plus + Social Fixer

Losers

Boy, am I glad I don't have a Facebook account and have to deal with crap such as this. Hell, I know; what would be even better is if I obsessively read every story about Facebook and then posted a message stating how much I hate Facebook! I could insult millions of people at the same time! Then finally I might feel better about being bullied at school.

They can have any pics of me

everybody keeps saying change all your pics...

you do realize that they have the entire life of facebook backed up somewhere. you can delete your account or change all your pics, but they will just go into their archives and pull one from the past.... how do you think they created the timeline even though a lot of people had gotten rid of a lot of the stuff that suddenly showed up on their page???

Read their Ts&Cs.

They claim rights to your content while it is live on the site. This isn't for being greedy bastards (they are that too, but...) but rather to allow them to legally republish your crap in other people's news feeds (etc).

Once the content has been removed, so to disappears their rights on the content. If they were to pull a picture from an archive... that could expose them to some pain.

Furthermore, as somebody has already said, claiming copyright privilege is not the same as using somebody's name/image to *endorse* a product *without* *their* *direct* *consent*.

Who in their right mind clicks on a Farcebook ad?

Probably not the best idea Mark's ever had

Well surely the point of Facebook is that you can see what your friends are saying and doing. But what if you weren't invited the the restaurant in question. I wonder could you sue. I'm sure there is a lawyer out there that does.

So.....

Watermarks should be insulting

I like Mondo's watermarks suggestion - and those watermarks should be appropriately insulting. e.g.: "ZUCKERBURG HAS A SMALL UNIT." <--I'd make a comment about Zuckerburg being an ad-whore, but I'm not sure that would actually be deemed an insult for Facebook.

In fact, I know that Facebook makes money off of advertising, but seriously there is a point where you begin to vote with your feet. I almost never even bother to post to Facebook anymore because they continue to ratchet up the "let's make the experience even more annoyingly manipulated." The only reason I even touch it anymore is because too many of my "friends" (think high school sheeple that I enjoy watching sink further) aren't competent to communicate via alternate medium.

The trick with these things is always to go after the advertisers, not facebook.

The saying that "any publicity is good publicity" is a con invented by marketing types. It isn't actually true. See how so many companies acted so quickly to pull advertisements from News of the World for example.

More and more pernicious changes

I rage-quitted from FB a couple of months ago due to the news feed SNAFU. Every single enforced update in FB since merely reinforces my decision.

The benefits (staying in contact with friends and family, holiday snaps, etc) are by far and away outweighed by the negatives of my personal content no longer being 'personal' - but used to drive advertising revenue.

Even by FB's standards, this is a cluster-f**k of a bad idea:

1. use of personal content [picture] in advertising without consent

2. a whole barrage of negative publicity for advertisers when clued-on users start uploading 'alternative' photos for the purposes of said photos being displayed in advertising

I suspect that point 2 (bad publicity) as opposed to point 1 (concern about user privacy) will see volte-face.

Whilst I actually expect this of FB, 'WTF' icon because clearly the ramifications have not thought through properly (whole sleuth of adult / inappropriate images i.e. enema images being posted on people's profiles).

I can imagine...

Disparage the Ads...

And, so, what if I see a sponsored story I despise? What if I disparage that story, and dig up dirt on that company and post it in order to discourage my friends and followers. I might not STATE anything other than simply post dirt links... Then what?

Not just facebook

Direct Line car insurance have been sending me creepy personalised mailshots for years... eg. Stock photo of your make/model/colour outside a stock photo house, but with your numberplate on the car and your house number/name on the house, and a road sign with your road name also in shot. I always make a point of letting them know just how creepy I find it each renewal, as i'm sure do others, but they keep doing it anyway..

Reinforcing behavior...

"I always make a point of letting them know just how creepy I find it **each renewal**, ..." [emphasis added].

But you continue to renew with then, don't you...over and over again...thereby reinforcing their bad behavior.

Remember the First Rule of Computer Science: If it works, don't fix it! Seems that, as annoying as you claim Direct Line's behavior is, it **is ** working for them, because you continue to send them money in spite of how annoyed you claim you are...and you send them a note each time telling them, in effect, "I've noticed your whizzy approach to "personalizing" your web site to me". Such feedback is better than crack to a marketdroid. As far as they're concerned, what they're doing is working...so why would they change anything?

What if...

I happen to be in a picture that was taken of someone else? I don't have a FB account, the person who uploaded the picture wasn't my representative and I sure has hell didn't agree to anything in FB's ToS. While I can probably get even with the moron who uploaded the picture, what I can't do is get that material removed from fb. As we all know, once it's on the net it, it's pretty much there forever. That is, unless google, fb and just about every analytics firm's systems all suffer catastrophic hard drive failures AND backup failures at the same time.

Zuckerberg is proof positive that someone can be conceived through anal sex.

Deleting content does *not* terminate FB's rights to it...

The T's and C's make it plain that content that is deleted does not become truly deleted if it has been previously shared with another FB account until ALL shares of the content are also deleted. In fact, this may be only one example of where "deleted" content isn't "truly" deleted.

Yes, when "truly deleted" all rights are withdrawn, but just "deleting" something does not necessarily have the effect of actually deleting it. That's the catch.

However, as someone else pointed out, the lack of a "model release" could be the sticking point for this "feature". The simple solution therefore is to ensure that your profile pic really is a pic of you and then wait for it to show up in a "sponsored story". Once that happens, send FaceBook a bill for the commercial use of your image without the required model release.

If they manage to argue that as a FB account operator gave an implicit release when you agreed to the terms of service and "provided" your profile pic, then the fly in the ointment may be agitated by making your profile picture that of someone ELSE, taken specifically for the purpose. FaceBook then cannot argue that they have an implicit model release and will HAVE to exclude your profile pic unless/until the pic is changed or a model release is obtained from the subject.

Or everyone should just change their profile pic to a blank/white image.

Like and Endorse not the same

I expect some of our esteemed members of society like footballers and film stars like coco-cola, but its only one or two who get paid millions to endorse them.

I do not agree that if i like something on facebook then i am willing to be shown to be endorsing it complete with photo of me.

I am sure FB's legal people have it sorted so that i cannot complain or do anything about it, so although FB is useful for staying in touch with people i have actually met, this is not something I agree with, the only vote i have is with my feet.

Now if they were willing to give me a cut of the advertising revenue for my ad then we could be talking, but taking my endorsement and keeping the income it gets them is not fair.

Shrewd

These sorts of things are going to happen more and more. Facebook's hit the top, and is on the way down as it fights one battle after another, with or without lawsuits. It's no longer a social media service, it's a litigator.

Zuckerburg is actually very shrewd. We all thought he was bonkers turning down deals that would have seen him personally gaining billions. However, if he IPOs the company as rumoured next year, he'll make way more than that. He also gets the "kudos" of being able to say "it grew and grew while I was running it, and it fell into a steaming pile of turd once public shareholders got their hands on it". Clever indeed...

Mocking "Do No Evil"

The mockery of the "Do No Evil" thing is largely based around the fact Google have certainly done at least as much "evil" as any other major corporation. And yet the freetard brigade repeat it ad nauseam as if it were somehow proof that everything from the chocolate factory were as innocent as a newborn unicorn.

Do you still own the copyright on photos you upload to facebook, I can't remember?

Does this mean if they start showing pics of your kids or friends in these ads (I'm assuming they don't auto-magically recognise you as a person) then they can get into trouble for infringing your copyright? The other option is only using your profile pic in these ads, which is fine, but I'm using images of other peoples products, so could that get them into trouble too?

I am so sick of it!

Not too long till the bubble bursts now then!

All of a sudden I don't like anything on FB!

Looking forward to the social networking bubble bursting! Anyone who invests in the insane valuation of FB now is a moron.

Already barely any of my friends 'use' FB use it anymore (they maybe 'active' but they do not 'use'), I can't be bothered either these days as it's turned into a marketing platform where your newsfeed is full off bullshit news on anything you or your friends have liked.

When is was about social interaction with your friends it was good and that is what made it so massively popular. Now, it's getting less so by the day, and this ad insertion will just serve to accelerate that.

If facebook wants to use my pic in an ad

Yummie time bomb

This is about the biggest legal time bomb Farcebook could have developed.

By using your face in an ad it implies you endorse whatever crap you're associated with in Facebook. There is nothing in T&Cs that solicits your endorsement, so what you have is fraudulent use of your name and reputation. All it needs is to hit one demi-celeb an they will be absolutely buried under lawsuits.

I am looking forward to that. With enthusiasm.

This is not crossing a line in the sand - this is crossing it and disappearing so far in the desert that the line is but a distant memory.

Typical shysters

Your picture is not Personal Information ?

The distinction of Personal Information is weird on Facebook, Personally Identifiable Information which is normally classified as Confidential or above in a business seems to be PUBLIC in facebook, my picture IS PII - Confidential in standard business practices, so FB's saying there will be NO personal information is incorrect.. my picture IS personal Information.

I use FB to see what my family is up to, but right now I am seriously considering telling them to email me or forget me... I truly resent FB continuously coming up with a new scam to publish my personal information to even more scammers and spammers.

Having my Photo's suggested to people I didn;t even know ( Friends of Friends ) was bad enough when they started the Facial Recognition , now they still want to get my photo out there.

Time to rethink about google+, but they are pretty bad about harvesting information also !

Why...

If you're not, or have any other reason to avoid it e.g. you're still continually baffled regarding the attraction of social networking sites, then don't go on Facebook.

I can't see the attraction - but then I AM over 60 - and I refuse to sign up before I can follow anyone else's urge to view their Facebook offering.

I am therefore, a Facebook-free zone. I'm not smug or superior about it: I accept that others might have a different view and might find it valuable and enjoyable. Just because the reasons escape me is no cause for me to be vitriolic about others.